The introduction of OpenAI's ChatGPT and other generative AI tools has impacted business, academia, and public life. As a result, the processes of text production are undergoing a substantial transformation both in academia and in industry. The role of human writers is changing. New writing strategies are emerging. New writing processes require new skills. Adapting to the new circumstances poses a challenge for professionals, academics, and students. It is tempting to use text generators to improve the efficiency of the text production process.

However, writers must acquire the necessary skills to efficiently and effectively use the new technology. Understanding the evolution of the writing process under these new conditions and the impact of the new technology is essential for developing best practices and proper guidance for writers. This project aims at exploring new strategies in student writing and to identify best practices for efficient and effective text production.

Project goals

1. A writing process evaluation framework as an open-source component of the existing application THEtool. The evaluation metrics will be efficiency, productivity, process complexity, and text quality.

2. A research paper summarizing the evaluation of writing processes comprising:

A taxonomy of new writing strategies
Description of evaluation methods
Systematic comparison between identified writing processes

3. Workshops with interested parties within ZHAW to discuss the outcomes of the writing processes evaluation und draw conclusions.

4. A report collecting the evaluation results and conclusions from the workshops.

The outcomes of this project will help us to gain a better understanding of how generative AI transforms the writing process and will lay the groundwork for further research in the field of teaching writing with the use of text generators. Considering that the current advancements are novel not only to writers, but to all parties, including writing researchers, and writing tutors, it is crucial to acquire a comprehensive understanding of how the new technologies are applied in practice and how they influence the writing process.